


How Sweet, Too Sweet, Too Bitter Sweet

by celestialskiff



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/F, Femslash, Fluff and Angst, King's Landing, Smut, domme!margaery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:56:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: Brienne could only think of the feeling of Margaery's finger on her mouth, its heat and faint taste of lemons, and of the warmth of her body next to Brienne's own. This will sustain me, Brienne thought. I will fight in the snow, and I will remember Margaery's warmth, her fingers on my skin. This will be enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mautadite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/gifts).



> Thanks to capeofstorm for the beta. <3

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,  
   Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,  
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;  
   Where thirsting longing eyes  
      Watch the slow door  
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

– _Echo_ , Christina Rossetti 

The heat was oppressive, but Brienne, used to moving in armour, did not find it as oppressive as others did. She walked arm in arm with Margaery along narrow paths, which wound among the leaves and vines, giving the illusion that the gardens were larger than they really were. The paths kept returning them to the pond, where the fish floated motionless among the green leaves.

“It is a pretty prison,” Margaery said. “But a prison nonetheless.” She smiled as she said it, unable, Brienne thought, to drop her courtly mask, but there was feeling in her words. 

“Would you like to leave, my lady?” 

“More than anything.” Margaery stopped walking, drawing Brienne next to her onto a stone bench. A bird sang nearby, its voice liquid and musical. 

“I would take you away, if you wished it,” Brienne said, and Margaery laughed. She put her hand in Brienne's: it was small and hot, and Brienne felt a shiver at the base of her spine. 

“I would, my lady,” Brienne repeated. “You are not trapped.” 

“I am my own prisoner,” Margaery replied. “I am imprisoned by my duty to my house and to my own ambitions.” She said it gently, with another smile, as though she was mocking herself, or her words were not serious. 

But Brienne heard the steel in them. She ducked her head, knowing that steel in herself. She, too, was bound to her duty, and perhaps also to her ambitions. She had always known what she was, but it took steel to be something other than what she was expected to be. 

They were silent for some time. Brienne wondered if Margaery wanted to return to Lady Olenna, if she'd had enough of Brienne and her glum talk, her promises. 

“I loved him, you know,” Margaery said. Another bird sang, sweet and high, and far away the sea met the shore. 

“Renly?” Brienne said, softly.

Not soft enough. Margaery put her finger to Brienne's lips. “There are ears everywhere.” 

Brienne could only think of the feeling of Margaery's finger on her mouth, its heat and faint taste of lemons, and of the warmth of her body next to Brienne's own. _This will sustain me_ , Brienne thought. _I will fight in the snow, and I will remember Margaery's warmth, her fingers on my skin. This will be enough._

Margaery returned her hands to her lap. “Yes. I loved him, in my own way. I loved him as I love my brother, and I love my brother fiercely. I saw his kindness, his goodness.” 

“I will avenge him.” Brienne's mouth was dry. She said the words like a mantra, as she had been saying them for years. 

“But you loved him differently, didn't you?” 

Brienne looked at her hands: big hands, chapped red from handling sword and horse, calloused. “He was kind to me once, when no one else was kind. I wanted to form his Kingsguard, answer his commands, keep him safe, die for him if need be.” Her tongue felt too big, suddenly. “But here I am.” 

A flash of colour: a bird flew into the tree overhead. Its long, throaty call filled the air. Above them, blue blossoms were beginning to open on the tree's thin branches. 

“Here you are.” Margaery found Brienne's hand again, and squeezed. Her little hand: softly tanned, the white nails curved into half-moons, gold rings on the smallest fingers. “We don't get to choose who lives and who dies. The good die; we live. But I believe you are one of the good, Brienne.” 

Brienne's chest fluttered, and her throat. She held the hand, desperately, and shut her eyes. No one had said words of such kindness to her in a long time. She had carried on only by knowing what she was doing was right. That was lonely; it was bitter. 

“If only I could be your queen, Brienne. What a world that would be.” 

And Brienne knew that Margaery was skilled in manners of the court: and those manners were treacherous. She could be playing games with Brienne for ends that Brienne could not imagine. Nevertheless, Brienne felt a swelling in her chest, and she ducked her head, the sob soundless, but the tears spilling down her cheeks. 

Margaery touched her jaw gently. “Oh, my dear. My dear. What have I done?”

Brienne shook her head. She snorted back the tears, with a sound like a dog. “I would serve you, my lady. If I could.” 

* 

Brienne felt hot all over. So hot she thought she might sink to her knees. 

You should not be here, she thought. 

She didn't move. She stood at Margaery's window, listening. At night, the frogs and nightingales sang in the gardens, and the sound carried to the highest rooms of the Red Keep. In the castle, the sounds of the city were dulled, but they were audible too. Among the endless calls of birds, the whirr of bats, Brienne heard the cries of women selling fruit or fish, of tavern-owners and gamblers. 

She imagined she was on the streets, striding, always confident, pretending never to hear their comments, never showing fear. And she imagined she was in the gardens, turned into a gull or a sea-bird, taking a moment's rest among the trees, away from the endless crashing sea. 

It was too much. Margaery was entirely naked; Brienne had only loosened her shirt. But her skin felt like it was burning, her face felt damp, and her hands were trembling. Margaery, sitting on the edge of the bed, her ankles crossed, her hair falling down her bare back, was entirely in control. 

“What does it feel like, when you take off your armour?” Margaery asked. 

Brienne looked back at her, and then her mouth grew too dry and she looked away. “Light,” she said at last. “Almost like flying. You grow used to it when it's on. You almost stop feeling it. You learn to move with it, to move with the weight. But then you take it off, and you realise how heavy it was.” 

Margaery was quiet for so long Brienne wasn't sure she would speak again. Then she said, “I never take my armour off. I don't know how it would feel.” 

Brienne abandoned the window. She looked at Margaery again, and felt her throat grow tight, but didn't try to look away. Margaery's back was slightly arched. Her soft stomach curved down to meet her pubic mound. The hair there looked soft too: unlike Brienne's own, which always seemed coarse and wiry. Brienne's eyes kept drifting to the space between Margaery's breasts, U-shaped, the skin smooth and tanned. 

“I am in character, even now, aren't I, Brienne?” Margaery stretched her shoulders back. “Charming and frank and just a little too knowing.” 

You should leave, some part of Brienne said. This is not where you should be. She said, “What do you want, my lady?” 

Margaery stood up Her feet found the silk slippers she had worn when she answered Brienne's knock at her door. She did not put the silk robe back on. “So many things,” Margaery said. “It is my most terrible fault.” 

She was level with Brienne now. Brienne stepped in front of the window (though surely no one would chance to look up here and see Margaery, slender and exposed. Surely not). She touched Brienne's throat, that tiny exposed patch of skin, visible now that she had loosened her shirt. 

“I didn't come here for this,” Brienne said. “You are betrothed. You are…” Her breath caught. 

“You are so lonely,” Margaery replied. “I can see it in your face. And so am I.” She swallowed. “You have seen this place, this terrible, twisted place. We are doing only good by easing one another's loneliness.” 

* 

Brienne was twelve, and wearing a wooden sword at her belt. The master of weapons said she had not yet earned steel. Walking with a wooden sword was embarrassing: it reminded her to work harder, to fight longer and more fiercely than any of the boys. Already her shoulders were uneven, her sword arm growing new muscle. 

Brienne was twelve, and in love with two people. One was her father's ward, Raoul, two years her senior and twice as fast as she was, better with arrows, and with dark curls that fell in his face when he concentrated. He had a solemn look, and a way of hitting Brienne on the arm after they had sparred, as though they were equals, or friends. The other was Junie, the smith's daughter, who understood the heat and the metals, and seemed almost part of the forge herself, dark-eyed and sooty-haired, her clothes smelling of fire, and her lips chapped and sore from being so close to the sparks. 

Raoul she saw when they trained, and they seemed equals. Then at meals he sat further down the table from her, and she saw she was more than a head taller than him already, and he deferred to her father and ate stringy mutton, and there seemed an abyss between them. He never looked at her. Junie she found ways of meeting, outside the forge, in the stables, on the afternoons when Junie slipped away and walked to the sea. 

Junie was about her age, and tall, too, though not as tall as Brienne, and very slender. Her movements were quick and deft, and Brienne thought she would be a good fencer. At the forge, she was busy, and hardly looked at Brienne, but on the path to the sea, she was light-hearted. They walked through the low pines, and beyond them, to the rough grass and exposed rock that lead to the shore. The geese squabbled among the stones; the gulls called. 

“I will leave, one day,” Junie said, looking at the sapphire sea, the boats spinning wildly on the waves. 

“As will I,” Brienne said. She would fight for the realm; she did not know how, yet, but she knew she couldn't fight for it here on Tarth. 

Junie climbed over the rocks, finding her way over the uneven crags down to the stony beach. Brienne followed, not as light on her feet as Junie, but just as quick. Junie crouched by a tidal pool, looking at the long ropes of red seaweed. Brienne knelt by her, and found at her feet, among the loose stones, a piece of sea-glass, as large as her palm, clouded and rough from its years in the waves. 

She gave it to Junie. “Where do you think it came from?” 

“From King's Landing,” Junie said. “It held Dornish wine, and a king drank from it. A king from long ago, a king with a dragon.” 

Junie held it up, but the glass was too clouded to see anything through it. They could see only light. 

“From old Valyria,” Brienne said. “Where the strongest steel was forged, and the warriors were fierce and true.” 

“Were they?” Junie asked. 

“That's what the books say.” 

Junie shrugged. She couldn't read, and did not trust the authority of books. “Will you take me with you, to King's Landing?” 

Brienne touched her hand. Brienne's skin was tanned from days outside; Junie's was pale, and red from the forge. “What would you do there?” 

“Oh, anything,” Junie said. “It doesn't matter. The whole world comes to King's Landing, so I'd see the whole world.” 

Brienne wasn't sure that was true. She had met members of great houses, who came to meet her father, and they were only dull men with grey beards, and she didn't think she learnt anything about Westeros from them. But she said, “I'd take you. I'd do anything you like, my lady.” 

“I'm not your lady!” Junie said, laughing. “I'm not a grand lady!” But she was smiling, and Brienne knew she liked it, she liked to be spoken to with courtesy. 

Brienne kissed her cheek, and smelt ashes in her hair, and grease. She was very warm, as though she contained a forge of her own. Junie laughed again, and squeezed Brienne's hand. 

“You have such lovely hair,” Junie said, brushing a strand of blonde out of Brienne's face. Brienne's maid despaired of her hair, so often tangled, so frizzy and easily matted. Brienne laughed too, her face so close to Junie's own, her nose so full of her scent. She felt a strange, wild happiness: she didn't know what to do with her body, she wanted to grab her sword and fight her own shadow; she wanted to throw herself into the sea. _I'll never be lonely again_ , she thought. 

* 

Margaery kissed her for the third time. She was very small against Brienne, but Brienne found herself sinking into the kiss. Margaery's tongue was hot and firm; her lips covered Brienne's own, and Brienne felt utterly undone, as though she had never kissed anyone before, as though she did not know what to do with her hands, her mouth, her throat. 

“Sit down, Brienne,” Margaery said, drawing very slightly away. 

Brienne obeyed, though she seemed to fall, rather than sit, on the edge of the bed. Margaery put her hands on Brienne's shoulders, her fingers touching Brienne's neck. Brienne was damp, she felt sweat on her lower back, under her armpits, in her groin. She felt uncouth, unworthy. 

Margaery kissed her forehead. She undid four buttons of Brienne's shirt, and unlaced her waistcoat. Brienne was ready to take everything off, but Margaery didn't ask her to. She simply stood above her, her hands on Brienne's shoulder. She was so close that Brienne could see the downy hair on her stomach, her neat navel, a little white scar on chest. Brienne could smell her in every breath. 

“Here, I am your Queen,” Margaery said. Her voice was gentle, but not at all playful. 

Yes, Brienne thought. _Yes, be my Queen. Imagine a world where I am yours and you are mine, and you are the Queen._ But Brienne's tongue stumbled, and she only said, “Yes.” 

“You are my Queen's guard, my confidant, my dearest companion, my servant. My lover.” 

Yes. Brienne wanted her decisions taken from her, her choices removed. It was like taking off armour, it was like being light. _What a world that would be._ “Yes,” she said. “Yes, my Queen.” 

Margaery laughed, then: a gentle, happy sound. She stroked Brienne's hair, brushing it back from Brienne's forehead. “It is so terribly hot today, isn't it?” 

They bathed in cool water, in the narrow tub in Margaery's dressing room. It was too small for both of them, and the water only tepid, but Margaery removed Brienne's clothes, and washed all the places where Brienne's skin felt too tight, too salty, and Brienne watched as Margaery sponged herself, lines of water running down her thighs. 

Brienne was flushed all over, still, to the roots of her hair, and her vulva pulsed; a hot heart-beat within her vagina. She thought she could smell her own wetness. “You are exquisite,” Margaery said. “Lie on the bed, my dear, and open your legs.” 

The sheets were cool under Brienne's back: Margaery tongue was impossibly wet on her thighs. Brienne shivered at the touch. It was barely more than a tickle, and almost too much already. Margaery held Brienne's hips, her fingers shaping Brienne's flesh. Margaery's tongue touched the edge of Brienne's vulva, and Brienne was already gasping, thrusting up against her, all the discipline she had drilled herself in for so long flickering away. 

Brienne gasped, almost a sob. “It's all right,” Margaery said. Her hands rested on Brienne's hips. Brienne could push her away so easily, overpower her; this was too much, but she didn't want it to stop. She was so afraid that Margaery would stop. She imagined the hands on her hips could hold her here. Keep her here. 

“It's all right, my dear. Let go, let go.” 

Margaery buried her face in Brienne's vulva. Brienne sobbed, and gasped, and saw stars. 

*

She lay with her head on Margaery's thigh. Margaery stroked her hair. Brienne's face was damp from Margaery's vulva and she tasted Margaery on her lips. 

Margaery sipped her cup of wine, and passed it to Brienne. It was bitter to Brienne's taste, and not refreshing, but heady, especially because it came from Margaery's lips. Margaery stroked Brienne's shoulder, the hard curves, and followed the muscles down her back. She touched the scars on Brienne's chest, on her hip, her thigh. 

“I have never made love with a soldier before,” Margaery said. 

“I must seem very ugly to you.” 

“Not at all.” Margaery traced a scar from Brienne's thigh to where it thickened over her hip. A scar still red, that still ached in rain. “I said it before: you are exquisite. Each mark from a sword, each freckle. Your muscles! Seven Hells, the way your arms move. You are so singular, so utterly yourself. That alone would make you beautiful, if the gods hadn't already gifted you with such clear eyes, such clever hands.” 

Brienne looked away, looked at Margaery's smooth collar-bones. It was too much. She knew Margaery must be lying, it must be her courtly manners, but still, it was too much. She was not beautiful. 

Margaery curled her hand around Brienne's bicep. “I want to fuck you again, while you are still mine.” 

Brienne's thighs ached. And inside she ached too, felt hollow. She let Margaery guide her, she rolled onto her front with her bum in the air, her thighs tense. She could feel Margaery's breath on her skin, though Margaery wasn't touching her yet. She couldn't see Margaery, could only see the pillow and her arms crossed beneath her. She felt exposed, and almost ridiculous. 

“I look like like a bitch in heat this way,” she said. 

Margaery's hand was on her bum then, squeezing the muscles. Her thumb digging down low, into Brienne's pubic hair, the heat of her vulva. “You look delicious. You look elegant, all these long lines of you. Not a bitch – a panther, maybe. Something all sinew, that could eat me if she wished.” 

She kissed the cheek of Brienne's ass, and then kissed lower down, closer to Brienne's vulva. Every touch sent a shiver through Brienne; she never seemed to grow used to it. “You could eat me if you wanted to, but you're here instead. I'm eating you.” She squeezed Brienne's arse. “You are letting me; you are letting me take you. It's a privilege.” 

“You talk a lot,” Brienne said, but the words were breathy, and her voice gave her away. She was flushed, aroused, delighted. 

Margaery laughed. “Yes, I do.” She bit down on Brienne's arse, sucking it, and then her fingers were finding their way into Brienne's vulva, and Brienne knew why Margaery had put her in this position, oh yes, she knew. 

* 

In the morning, the larks and hoopoes began again, chirping and singing in the trees below. And the sounds of King's Landing waking up rose to the room: the cries of stall-holders, the sound of horses, of calls to prayer. The sounds of the Red Keep too, of feet on stone, of fires being lit, water carried. 

Margaery dressed in sapphire silk, and asked Brienne to help her with the lacing. “Pull the bodice tight,” she said, “No: tighter,” and Brienne's hands felt huge on Margaery's waist. She thought, suddenly, of Tarth, of sailing, of holding the rope until her hands burnt. 

Margaery kissed Brienne's forehead, her nose, and then her lips. Brienne kissed back, her tongue on Margaery's mouth, her teeth nipping Margaery's skin. Margaery tangled her fingers in Brienne's hair, pulling. Brienne felt the gasp in her throat; she gasped into Margaery's mouth. 

“I have to go,” Margaery said. “I must be seen at breakfast.” 

Brienne's hand was on Margaery's lower back, stroking the silk. She left it there for a moment, feeling Margaery's body beneath the cloth, her breath, how full of life she was. Then she let her hand drop. 

“I can't stay long,” Brienne swallowed. “I'm leaving soon, leaving King's Landing.” 

“Come and say goodbye before you go.” Margaery was putting on her necklace. Her dress was laced up, her hair neat, her armour flawless. Brienne couldn't tell if Margaery meant her to say goodbye privately, or if she meant her to say it to her and Lady Olenna, in the garden. She didn't know whether she'd already taken as much as Margaery would give. 

She turned at the door. Her smile was familiar, and intimate, but Brienne thought she smiled like that at everyone. Made everyone feel that they were the most important person in the world to her. “Don't let anyone see you leave,” she said. 

Suddenly Brienne was aware she was naked in someone else's room, lying on top of crumpled sheets. She smelt of sweat and Margaery's body, and lilac perfumes. 

The door shut. Margaery had given her so much: a whole night of her hands, her voice, her skin. _This will sustain me,_ Brienne thought. _This will sustain me through snow, through fireless nights._ And she thought: _I'm starving._


End file.
